I Want To Be A Generalist

I decided to become a generalist.

Discovering My Interests

It took a while to discover a very important aspect of my life. I didn’t want to have laser focus on only one aspect of the world, something that I was stuck in for a long time. I realized that I want to do a bit of everything and that was being more honest with myself. I felt like I escaped this illusion of life that I had and everything became so much more interesting.

Looking Back Into the Past and Now

The Past of Polymaths

If you search some notable persons on Wikipedia, you’ll notice that they hold multiple denominations such as scientist, philosopher, inventor, artist and so on. What you realize, these people have been from the deep past where being a polymath, someone who’s an expert in many areas, was actually quite standard. Despite the limited access to knowledge and no Interest, these people travelled far and wide to expand their knowledge eventually writing about it in exquisite texts that are so insightful that they are still canon and reference material today.

Our Present Of Specialization

In the past few hundred years, academia has developed a ride towards specializations. We are thought from elementary school that our way to success will involve picking a narrow field, mastering it and finding a job in that area. Although our school adventures starts with a balance of several subjects, as we progress through the grades, things start to narrow down. Once you reach the PhD level, your worldview seems really narrow and it’s seems that your subject is all you can talk about. As our modern times go by, it seems that the specializations are becoming even narrower to the point of making our views on aspect of life very binary and shallow.

Losing Your Advantage

The biggest disadvantage of specializing becomes the fact that what you learn might be irrelevant in just a few years in our fast paced world. If you studied about fourth-generation programming languages, well guess what, today it’s almost irrelevant and few career opportunities will allow you to use this out of date skill.

Leaving My Comfort Zone

Just like many, I was brainwashed to believe that the only way to success and fame was through university. As time progressed, I felt like I wasn’t being squished into a really narrow corridor. The illusions provided by past school became disillusionment.

I went to lounges for graduate students to learn more about their lives. Technically I wasn’t allowed to be there but the people I met were friendly and very open. I started to realize that their entire lives were dedicated to something very narrow. I tried to initiate discussions about something else but it would be awkward and unnatural. It wasn’t until I discussed their favourite subject. They lit up and had so much to say.

Exiting the Path of Specialization

The diplomas handed out at a long party started to seem irrelevant to me. It didn’t even mean I was good at something. I was just complacent ready to be obedient at some job. As one of my physics professors said “when you get a diploma, it just means congratulations! you've memorized fifteen books”.

This whole idea started to become a nightmare for me but for some reason I kept soldering on. The culmination of finishing my courses lead to a very anti-climatic event when I was handed my piece of paper. It was the result of 5 years of boredom that I spent so much money on.

After a long of only doing one thing in my life as a software developer, the shallow perspective of life made me feel incomplete. The world seems so full and colourful, good and bad, things. I left the shackles of my tiny little field and decide that I would like to know a bit more about this planet we live on.

New Careers and Hobbies

I decided to leave the software engineering to try other things. I wanted to do a bit of everything. After trying to bud myself into a field that I had no credentials, I’ve become a technical and content writer, as a freelancer. I left myself to do technology gigs despite my departure from programming doing mostly IT services. I’ve even started driving for Uber with a 10 hour shift every Saturday.

Volunteering was something I took on. I explored taking part in humanitarian efforts, animal conservation and even eccentric meetups. I’ve managed to start my own social club that’s been solid for more than two years with weekly meetings and over 600 members.

Many of these activities took much of my time and didn’t pay near as much as my old software consulting career, maybe even half. However, I feel more content with what I’m doing not only because of the enhanced freedom these opportunities provided but also erasing boredom due to the fact that I was doing something different all the time.

I’m not done yet on seeing what other things I can do. I have on my mind things like real estate and home decoration. Another thing that tickles my mind has a big stigma behind it. Becoming a cuddle therapist…

Fear

I didn’t know how to face my desires and the changes required to move on to something else. The risk was really big and the uncertainty uncomfortable. I was trying to hold something full-time while I looked but I was started to focus less and less on it. Instead, I was exploring the other avenues and doing many interviews that lead to failure. I felt like I had to go back to software but I eventually got my first writing gig. It was a roller-coaster because I was doing something I wasn’t qualified in but after finishing the projects, I was proud of what I did. The impact on the company was obvious.

Irrelevancy

This is a purely anecdotal experience. I noticed that many people worked in fields that have nothing to do with their diploma. Theologians becoming software developers. Electrical engineers doing sales for life insurance. Mathematicians stuck in a job filing tickets for a broken payroll system. Social scientists feeding city hall with wasted time. Uber drivers with advanced diplomas in mechanical engineering. And so on.

Job search has become so difficult that finding something that exactly matches your studies is really difficult. No matter your level of education, there’s a high chance that your intelligence won’t count compared to another candidate who’s less qualified but has more charisma and cheat his way through the interviews.

Learning and Learning to Learn

Academia

While some people want to collect diplomas like Pokémon cards, I thought that academia was probably the worst way to learn. The main problem is cost but also the outdated nature of the form of education. Most of your time was swallowed by boring lectures and endless assignments. Even worse, it cost so much money to the point where in some places around the world, you need a mortgage to study.

Unfortunately, depending on your field and work arrangements, some might be still asked to provide that magic piece of paper. Apparently, it’s a right of passage proving that you learned and mastered something. Nothing could be further than the truth however. Most students worked for grades rather than learning. Cheating is abundant. Professors are incredibly incompetent because they have no experience in the real world. When you escape university after a grueling four to five years, you realize that you’re not ready for the real world.

Self-Learning And Curiosity

This is a path that I’ve taken a decade ago. We live in a blessed age where knowledge is so accessible. Book stores and libraries everywhere with resources ready to have explore the world outside yours. Our biggest blessing is probably the Internet. Content for all sort of interests and often cheap to take part in, in fact sometimes free. You can pick your learning style whether it’s reading a book, doing exercises online or even boring lectures if that what suits you.

It takes much motivation and discipline to learn something. However, once you get into it, it becomes an addiction. Your thirst for knowledge grows and grows.

What will fuel your learning adventure the most is your curiosity. Sometimes you look at something as simple clock and start wondering how a quartz stone can accurately measure seconds. What about the intricate workings of a society you’ve never heard of? Do you want to memorize pi to a thousand places or be a fact machine for the capitals of each country in the world? The possibilities are endless.

Best part is that you can use this knowledge to teach others and make yourself a nice career with some variety. Maybe you won’t have diploma or anything but you just need to sell yourself well. If you’re lucky, some online courses provide certificates which can be added to your portfolio.

Learning on my own has opened my eyes to so many things teaching me so many facts. My sense of culture grew massively and suddenly I was more qualified in something that I didn’t even know existed as a skill a few moments before.

I can’t let go of that anymore. As one of my managers put it so well, I’m stuck in learning mode.

Time Investment

This desire to learn on the other hand required so much time from me. I had to push myself so hard to read Wikipedia all the time and feeding myself with books. I’m entranced with books now reading one or two books every week. I’m a non-fiction lunatic that will read anything (except for biographies). I let my impulsive nature pick the book for me.

My main method of learning is definitely reading. I am a faster than average reader peaking at 700 words per minute so that speeds me up a bit. However, I spend at least two hours everyday reading.

Other people prefer documentaries, lectures, audio books and so on. It doesn’t really matter what you do as long (as you feel that) you’re benefiting. See what you’re willing to invest time in.

Don’t worry about retention but focus more on comprehension. We all forget so easily but an experience will stay with us forever.

Practicing A Skill

Much knowledge requires another huge piece of time investment. If you’re learning about a musical instrument you probably want to practice often. Personally, I’m infatuated with flight and aviation. Learning procedures in a flight simulator can take some time and so much knowledge about the plane. The quirks of landing a plane need to be measured so you can successfully put the plane on the ground.

Of course, the best part is you get to choose how much time you want to spend on something.

Critical Thinking and Creativity

Having been exposed to many subjects, you develop new ways of thinking. Your perspectives are much wider and have new ideas that came to mind that you never even imagined. This sharpens your thinking skills. In fact, you probably just start to think more often instead of being bored staring at the wall. Eventually, that forces to change your perspective all the time and think from many different angles. This fuels your critical thinking skills and you might even become a better debater.

When it comes to creativity, this is really obvious. Having many ideas presented to you on a consistent basis, you develop more curiosity. As you have more ideas in your head, they can become a catalyst for new concepts. You will activate many parts of your brain and link things together that were seemed irrelevant on their own.

Combining Many Subjects

Specialists have rarely explored other subjects in detail. They never get a chance to combine multiple perspectives in one so they miss the chance for innovative thinking and freedom.

For example, if you are familiar with Toyota’s KANBAN methodology, you might fight that it is a good software development methodology as well. Perhaps your knowledge of Non-Euclidean geometry can help with that machine learning algorithm that you are developing.

Conclusion

Learning what I wanted to learn has changed my perspective drastically. I was finally starting to discover myself just a bit more and what my desires and aspirations actually are.

I really wanted to become good at things. Many things in fact. Nothing left as a black box opening things and analyzing their internal mechanisms. I need to be balanced so I can have interesting conversations and debates with all sorts of people. As a result, I became more comfortable with myself and even enjoy my own company.

The biggest change for me is the amount of activities that I can do now. I’m never bored and always have something to explore. I do multiple and different kinds of jobs now. I volunteer and host my own things.

For those who read my blog regularly, you will notice that I’m directionless (unlike many more popular bloggers focusing on a single niche) and quite haphazard sometimes. The subjects I cover are all over the place and this is due to my unending curiosity for learning and practicing a new art. When I learn, I want to share that experience and teach it to other people.

What defines our identity?

For most, this seems like an easy question to answer. You are defined by what you studied and what you do for a living. If you file taxes, then you are an accountant. If you talk to computers everyday, then you’re probably a software developer. After telling one your name, you immodestly reveal and associate yourself to your interlocutor about what you do every day. Some other people use their roles in daily life such as “father” or “care-taker” because their so easy to choose and even easier to understand.

I was the same for most of my life. I did software engineering at university and spent 10 years of my life as a software consultant. I associated myself with computers and technology defining it as my identity. However, many years later, I became a part-time Uber driver as well, so have I become a driver instead of an engineer? My career took u-turn into technical writing. I still was in IT doing computer stuff but I wrote about it rather than writing for them. I write this blog, does that mean that I’m a blogger? So what am I?

Wikipedia has hundreds of articles about notable people. Their titles such as say ‘philosopher’ or ‘artist’ were described in a way to give the impression that it is all they did in their lives. They are essentially a personification of what they did and basically what they will be remembered for. It seems like a really shallow viewpoint to me to box someone like that but perhaps there’s no conspiracy behind it and it’s just true.

I naively entered university thinking that it will be a direction where I will have an intimate connection with computers. This was my dream since I was child. However, as an obsession, I learned much on my own and found myself not learning anything new at school. I pushed through thinking that this piece of paper would be the catalyst to my career and it wasn’t. I found my way into my career before even graduating.

Eventually, I started realizing that university was not teaching me to think or learn. Although many will title this as a conspiracy of some sort, I feel like the education system is designed to just teach us how to follow instructions and be obedient and submissive. Something that we will be doing at our future jobs worshipping our leads. Critical thinking and informing ourselves was totally out of the syllabus.

However, I saw some of my peers still studying after their basic degree. It seemed obvious that this path in university wasn’t designed to make you smarter but rather turn you into a specialist.

This was my nightmare because I didn’t want to be stuck in a tiny world where all I knew was what I researched. Instead, I want to learn about many subjects from technology and philosophy and everything in between. I wanted to become good at many things and have my life coloured with variety.

So technically, I’m a ‘generalist’ but I feel like it’s a condescending title that gives the impression that I was mediocre at everything. However, I believe that I have mastered some arts of all sorts. However, even that title wasn’t one that I didn’t want to have.

At the end, I realized that it was my job to build an identity. I could pick from some many and use a different one at each introduction when meeting people. However, that was far from my nature and what I always aspired to be. Someone creative and well-rounded. But, this couldn’t have a title because that was simplistic and benign.

One of my managers give me a compliment that I still hang on to. That I’m “always in learning mode”. It’s true, I’m constantly searching for meanings that I don’t know yet or prying electronics apart so I can see how they made it work. Not knowing something makes me feel so uncomfortable. Am I a ‘learner’ now? Maybe, but again that’s not really an appropriate title.

I’m still struggling to build an identity for myself and always wondered what I’ll be called when I pass away. I’m neither everything or nothing. I’m pulled into many directions but that’s more important and fun then being boxed to a single title that will limit me to just one thing.

Many of us are tantalized by many things so I believe it’s fruitless to keep our identity binary. As a result, I don’t think it’s necessary to have an identity of any kind and rather just enjoy what we do for both a living and in our free-time.

So what defines our identity? Nothing really. We are free to choose it. It’s a waste of time to think about. You are way more than what you do in your life.

Ironically, “Calling Out” by “Penguin Prison” is playing on Spotify. “I can’t be good at everything, so do me a favour and just take what you want!”.

Burnout isn't about work...

A few weekends ago, I found myself doing absolutely nothing. I didn't watch movies or shows, read reddit, have any meaningful conversations or even eat. I took naps to escape reality and slept-in as much as I could, much to my detriment with even more fatigue and tiredness.

I thought I was having a routine depressive episode but I realized that my mood wasn't actually that bad. However, I really did want to do nothing other than sleep, complain and stare out the window. Nothing was interesting.

My creativity and brainpower was sucked out me until it was completely depleted. What really happen?

I often blamed work for this but I'm still functioning there and considered a high performing employee. I always have the energy to do something there, but come home all of it disappears.

While some say burnout is clinically similar to depression, I'm not that sure. Depression is quite a constant uniform feeling of hopelessness, dread, negative thought patterns and perhaps a physiological aspect. Burnout doesn't exhibit itself when have to work, it's when you don't.

For most of us, work is our liveliness, it's literally what keeps up alive, income and passion. We put all our effort into it because we have to otherwise we're not meeting deadlines or that next performance review won't be so good. You're forced to perform.

When the pressure is off, the mental energy spent to do work depletes any sense of motivation left for any hobbies, relationships and so on. At home, you don't have deadlines or clients to meet or sales pitches to satisfy. All those obligations are gone, you're free to decide for yourself save your errands like groceries and laundry, though even those can be neglected sometimes.

The end result is fatigue and self-neglect.

Unlike depression, burnout probably has no major physiological causes thought it's effects maybe. Neglecting your body with lack of food and exercise won't help the lack of motivation and low energy.

Few resources have presented reliable treatments for burnout. I don't think it exists because everyone experiences it in a different way. One solution may work for another but would make another's burnout even worse.

One constant factor between all these 'treatments' however I noticed is breaking the routine of life. Things won't improve if you do the same thing everyday. You to have things to look forward to whether it's exciting times or times for rest. I can be really anything.

For me, for example, I'm an introvert-extravert hybrid (leaning more on the introverted side). I like doing things alone but I need to go out and chat with people. I need to go out and enjoy the views, the restaurants, the malls, the parks and so on. Knowing these things are coming gets me excited, even a chat at a coffee shop. Being locked in drives me nuts but sometimes I want to be locked and left alone.

For others, vacation time might help 'recharging ones batteries' though one must be careful as vacation can be equally as tiring. Especially long trips and vacations relying on heaving planning full of activities.

I noticed that others simply like to retreat and escape. Binge on TV shows and movies, spend hours on Reddit and read fiction novels. That's also breaking the routine if all you do is work.

There really isn't a single solution for burnout and I really can't say I found the ideal one for me. I hate to say it, but the best solution is trial and error. My solutions ranged from changing the colour temperature of the lights at home to going on more meetups. Some did help and others didn't.

I don't believe that burnout is about self-worth or how one views one's self at an organization. That may be effect of burnout but not the cause. The reason for burnout is simply fatigue, lack of energy and motivation and one must find the way that works for them to help them restore that energy.

Please post in the comments in how you recover from low-energy energy and burnout? How did you keep the fire burning when you get home?  Do you hit up the gym, cook a fancy new meal, or take a day or two off and spend the day watching Netflix? These discussions are key to understanding this relatively new concept and how treat it.